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Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Schoolhouse Tunic – Part 2

Before we go on with our tunic bodice today, I just wanted to ask you: Do you have bad sewing days? You know, those days where your machine just won’t cooperate, or your fine motor skills are just off and so you find ripping your seams more often? Well, yesterday, while I was preparing this part of the tutorial, was one of those days for me… :-(

Anyway, let’s move on to finish the tunic bodice! Today we’re going to cover steps 4 and 5 of the pattern instructions.

Grab one of the plackets and place it on the bodice back, right sides together. Align the top raw edge of the placket with its corresponding shoulder.

Lift the placket flap and the seam allowance and move them out of the way.

Now sew the shoulder using a 1/4” seam allowance. Sew between the edge where the sleeve will be attached and stop at the placket seam.

Finish the shoulder seam either with the serger or a zig-zag stitch.

Now take the seam allowance and fold it down towards the bodice front. Fold the top of the placket 1/4” to the inside as well.

Bring the placket back in place. Pin it all the way down.

Now you’re going to attach the placket to the bodice front. To do so, topstitch beginning at the shoulder seam all the way down. I used my serger stitches as my guide.

Now handstitch the top of the placket to the shoulder. Make sure that your stitches don’t show on the right side of the garment by attaching the placket to the seam allowance.

Repeat this whole process with the other placket to attach it to the other shoulder!

Now you’re going to topstitch all the way around the neck area. See the start and finish points (and try to ignore my slip-ups if you can…). Note: The pattern instructs you to stitch 1/4” from the outer edges. I opted to do it closer to the edge, but that’s just me!

This is how the placket should look from the right side.

Congratulations! You’re done with this step!

Check back soon to see how to attach the sleeves to the bodice. Let me know if you have any questions. Or leave me a comment. I love comments!

Hmmm.... I've been trying to figure out what you mean by the "shoulder side edge of the placket" but I can't. At any rate, I can tell you that I prefer to top stitch as it gives sewn items a more "finished" look. Hope it helps!

Shoulder side was my attempt to be clear! Obviously didn't work. In your last image, I mean the top stitch line that starts in the middle of the shoulder seam. But I think that the "finished" look is the answer--I agree that often a bit more top stitching will make a project look better. Thanks for the tutorial!

I think I know to what A-mous is referring.. the green top-stitching down the center of the front bodice piece that attaches the placket to the front bodice. I missed it the first time I looked at the pattern, but it is there to do so - in step 5a of the pattern.

I didn't feel like dealing with any hand stitching while making my mock-up so instead, I folded over a scant quarter inch of the placket pieces at the shoulder. I just played with a little finger pressing until it looked like enough to go a bit past the should seam before I iron-pressed it. The placket then extended past the shoulder seam a bit into the back bodice piece. I pinned the placket down and then flipped it over to right-side up so that I could stitch-in-the-ditch in the well of the should seam. The stitches don't show and the placket is tacked down very well. It gave a more-finished look to the inside of that area and saved me a bit of time to-boot. I think I'll still do this method on my real-deals (planning on making at least four of these bad-boys).